“Oh, no, and many more men than women. Our women have their delicious frivolities, I assure you, and are always running over to Europe to replenish their really splendid wardrobes, while others seem never to tire of travel. But those who do come are very representative and I want you to like them better than those whose highest ambition is to get into your own set in England.”
“I have met some charming Americans,” I replied, “and they always seemed bright and full of talk. It was only when they tried to be English that I didn’t like them. Bertie adores American women, but whether he will like this superior intellectual variety——”
“Oh, do not form an erroneous impression,” he said, hastily. “I assure you they do not in any way resemble the poor Bostonians who have been so severely caricatured. They have accomplished the happy combination of intellectual activity and appreciation, with a light worldliness and a love of the best that their money and opportunities can buy, which makes them unique in their country.”
“I infer that your set is quite exclusive, difficult to get into.”
“It is—much more so than the fashionable set, for money is far more plentiful in this country than that peculiar combination of brains, culture, and pecuniary success which I may say is the hallmark of our set. I have a theory that the right sort of gifts always is successful; by that I mean those gifts which are distinctively American in the highest sense—Americanism in all its wonderful distinctiveness, but polished, refined, cultivated, purified of dross. The exponents of it naturally are successful with the large increasing number throughout the country who possess the instinct to rise higher and strive for the best; therefore, when these exponents are gathered together anywhere, they form a fastidious circle which excludes inharmonious spirits, and constitutes what is now the real aristocracy of the country. But, I can assure you, we are perfectly normal,” he added, with his rare delightful smile. “We dine and wine each other, have many a game of poker, love sport, have our boxes at the opera, and know the world pretty thoroughly.”
“It sounds profoundly interesting,” I said, but when I repeated the conversation to Bertie he growled that it was “jolly rot.”
“I shall like the men if they are like Rogers,” he added; “for he’s a jolly good sort inside that chain-mail armour of his; but I feel sure I shall hate the women. I’ll be bound they are rotters, every one of them—the personification of their self-conscious provincial literature. If they are I’ll make a public scandal by flirting with Jemima.”
27th
Curiously enough I ended my last entry with Jemima’s name, and I have just had another characteristic conversation with her. Last night I awakened suddenly out of a sound sleep, my mind alert with the idea that something had happened to Bertie. I sprang out of bed and opened the door. At once I heard Parker moving about Bertie’s room—his own adjoins it and he is devotion itself, the good soul. I was not one minute, I can assure you, getting into a wrapper and crossing the hall. Parker opened the door for me, and when I saw his anxious face I pushed him aside and hastened to the bed. There lay Bertie white and gasping; and Polly, when I saw that towel I thought for a moment I should faint. He has not had a hemorrhage now for so long that I had fallen indolently into the belief he never would have another. I had put those dreadful towels—which for two years were spread all over my imagination—quite out of my mind. What brought on this attack I cannot imagine—but I am not going to horrify you with details. I put my arm under his head and sat there all night. He was not able to get up until this afternoon and I did not leave his room. When, however, he was in his hammock on the veranda, with Agatha reading the Times to him, I slipped away to the woods, for I wanted to be alone.
I was too tired to walk far, but when I felt quite alone I sat down on a rock in those friendly depths and cried bitterly. The future, after this really radiant interval, seemed doubly dark and uncertain. How again could I ever be sure that Bertie would get well? The doctor said that the Adirondacks were the last hope, and if Bertie wears them out——